The title
Surface Body / Action Space
discloses various modes of practice and philosophy that define
Parlá's work. In his painting and sculpture, heavy textures and thick
application of paint form a layered substructure that conveys weight,
volume and permanence, while veils of color, rapid calligraphic marks
and remnants of text form a palimpsest-like surface suggesting the
ephemeral: memory, the traces of lives and time. Like fragments of city
walls, the works evoke societies in upheaval and solemnize the
distinctly human impulse to leave a record of our presence.

Parlá's Cuban American heritage is a duality that infuses all of
his work. Where the urban wall structures signify fixed
geographical-political boundaries, the gestural performance symbolizes
marks of personal freedom. Parlá sees his work as "erasing the hyphen"
between the two words, while similarly bridging polarities between
painting and sculpture, maximal and minimal, abstraction and
representation.

José Parlá was born to Cuban parents in Miami, Florida, in 1973
and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His monumental commissioned
works may be seen at One World Trade Center, The Barclays Center, and
the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAM Fisher Building. The solo exhibition
José Parlá: Segmented Realities
remained on view through May this year at the High Museum of Art
in Atlanta, and his work is included in the 2015 Bienal de la Habana,
Havana, Cuba, through June. In addition to the work concurrently on view
at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, Parlá presents
Segmented Realities
with a new series of sculpture with an outdoor installation at The
Standard High Line Plaza in New York City running through October 31st.

The exhibition
Surface Body / Action Space
at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, 505 West 24 Street, and Mary Boone Gallery, 541 West 24 Street, is also on view through 31 October 2015. For more information, please contact the respective galleries.

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Welcome to The New Post-Literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing. This gallery serves as a base for an international group of artists, writers, readers, and viewers. I am currently seeking submissions for February 2018. Please send your submissions, under 8mb, as jpgs, gifs, and png.